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Concert and Other Random February Bits
Feb. 21st, 2011 01:49 pmWell, not much is going on here. It's more of the same really...
My mother-in-law was here earlier in the month. I caught a cold the same weekend she was here and felt miserable the whole time. She cooked almost the entire weekend and filled our freezer with food. Which is fine, except now we have to eat it all in order to put anything else in there.
Although I was in a Mood because I was feverish the whole weekend, I managed not to pick too many fights with her. I did have a minor argument with her about the cost of new windows in a home. We were showing her random neighborhoods that we were interested in possibly buying a home in. I kept telling her that "this home" or "that home" needed new windows because they were all about 60+ years old and she thought that was no big deal.
"Just go to Home Depot, they do it, it's not that expensive."
I don't think the woman has ever replaced windows in a home her whole life 9_9 I told her, "Oh yes, they are fine if all your windows are a standard size..."
"Standard size?"
"Yes, lots of old homes have windows that are odd sizes, particularly in the attic spaces. You have to have all those custom made and they are much more expensive then."
I am, of course, speaking from experience. I grew up in a house that was built in the 1920's and my parents JUST replaced the windows a couple winters ago. They had to have ALL of the attic windows custom made, a bathroom window with frosted glass, as well as the center window of the downstairs living room which was also an odd size. They also installed protective windows outdoors to protect some stained glass pieces. Just the attic windows alone required them to buy 4 custom windows. So, I know what I'm talking about, thank you, and I believe all the custom ones were twice what the standard ones cost.
Though I suppose I can't blame her, she seems to be oblivious about the worth/cost of a lot of things... which explains a lot about her lifestyle.
In addition to the window argument (which my husband scolded me for) I caught her trying to throw half a lemon into the garbage disposal. I saw it in the sink and thought "no, she wouldn't be that stupid." Later, I was cleaning up after her (she made HUGE messes and never cleaned up, so I would follow along and clean up after her before she added to the mess) and saw the lemon just barely poking out of the garbage disposal flaps.
Now, I never had the luxury of a garbage disposal growing up. We were always CAREFUL not to let giant pieces of food go down the drain. It has only been since I lived in apartments that I have ever even HAD one. I always assumed they were for "incidental" foods going in your drain, like when your hand slips while draining pasta and some of it ends up down the drain. Now, I could be wrong, but I'm almost 100% sure that you are NOT supposed to put LARGE CHUNKS of FOOD in there. It's not a freakin' compost heap! Besides, I know that extra junk in the water supply causes problems at the sewage treatment plant, so if nothing else, I know THEY do not appreciate people shoving half a lemon down there! I took it out quietly and threw it in the trash can. To my knowledge it did not go into the garbage disposal...
But something else DID make a reappearance... old chicken. One night she decided to make chicken soup because I was sick and then my husband began to feel ill too (his cold only lasted about 24hrs, I suffered through at least 3 days). Now, we all went to bed and the next morning, I awoke to find that she never put the chicken or the chicken soup away in the fridge. Her excuse was that it was "too warm to put away." It sat out for at LEAST 3 hours before anyone went to bed, and by morning it was out over 12 hours. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather put warm to hot things away in the fridge and lose money on the power bill than risk food poisoning. She insisted it was ok, and even reheated the soup expecting me to eat it :p (I refused, but my husband ate some). The rest of the chicken I assumed she threw away because I did find a few random bits in the trash can.
That was, until yesterday...
I was going to make curry for dinner and my husband pulled out a tub of frozen chicken that his mom left. When I defrosted it, I found out that it was the same cooked chicken that was left out all night! D: I triple bagged it and tossed it out and thawed some fresh chicken. I hate wasting food, but I did not want to risk getting sick from it. I'm not normally totally paranoid about these things, but it was out for about FIFTEEN HOURS before it was put away.
I hope there are no more surprises.
Now, on to some good non-ranty news. My friend onyx_shinigami got to attend the Distant Worlds concert when it was in Seoul. She was kind enough to send me a link to their site showing that they will be in Atlanta in May :D
I just bought my tickets and will be going with my husband on Friday, May 6th. ^_^
Although the Final Fantasy series no longer impresses me, I do like Nobuo Uematsu. I'm excited ^_^
Other than that, just waiting for the school year to be over... I'm working on a video game lesson, but I don't think the group I have this year will fully appreciate what I know about the subject... particularly because I'm mainly covering the 8-bit NES. I'm focusing on that because: 1) there are a LOT of utilities out there to gather raw data from, 2) how it works and the hardware is well documented, 3) lots of other systems operate under the same basic principles (Sega Master System and Genesis, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance etc.), 4) I can cover Miyamoto and Kondo as artistic references, and 5) I can double check ALL my information with my brother the computer engineer who is currently disassembling SMB 3's code for fun in his spare time ^_^;
All I gotta say is after researching how they make EVERYTHING in 8x8 pixel blocks, I have a new appreciation for how much work they put into those things xx; The little bit of work I have done on it has nearly drove me mad! I hope Miyamoto takes frequent breaks to rock out on his Zora guitar... (ok, that's not a real picture of it, but supposedly he walked into his office one day and Nintendo had custom made him a guitar that looked like that. He is apparently, a very good guitar player).
Anyhow, my efforts and awesome geek powers are probably wasted on this group... Maybe 4th grade will like the lesson more. They are generally more awesome than my 5th graders.
My mother-in-law was here earlier in the month. I caught a cold the same weekend she was here and felt miserable the whole time. She cooked almost the entire weekend and filled our freezer with food. Which is fine, except now we have to eat it all in order to put anything else in there.
Although I was in a Mood because I was feverish the whole weekend, I managed not to pick too many fights with her. I did have a minor argument with her about the cost of new windows in a home. We were showing her random neighborhoods that we were interested in possibly buying a home in. I kept telling her that "this home" or "that home" needed new windows because they were all about 60+ years old and she thought that was no big deal.
"Just go to Home Depot, they do it, it's not that expensive."
I don't think the woman has ever replaced windows in a home her whole life 9_9 I told her, "Oh yes, they are fine if all your windows are a standard size..."
"Standard size?"
"Yes, lots of old homes have windows that are odd sizes, particularly in the attic spaces. You have to have all those custom made and they are much more expensive then."
I am, of course, speaking from experience. I grew up in a house that was built in the 1920's and my parents JUST replaced the windows a couple winters ago. They had to have ALL of the attic windows custom made, a bathroom window with frosted glass, as well as the center window of the downstairs living room which was also an odd size. They also installed protective windows outdoors to protect some stained glass pieces. Just the attic windows alone required them to buy 4 custom windows. So, I know what I'm talking about, thank you, and I believe all the custom ones were twice what the standard ones cost.
Though I suppose I can't blame her, she seems to be oblivious about the worth/cost of a lot of things... which explains a lot about her lifestyle.
In addition to the window argument (which my husband scolded me for) I caught her trying to throw half a lemon into the garbage disposal. I saw it in the sink and thought "no, she wouldn't be that stupid." Later, I was cleaning up after her (she made HUGE messes and never cleaned up, so I would follow along and clean up after her before she added to the mess) and saw the lemon just barely poking out of the garbage disposal flaps.
Now, I never had the luxury of a garbage disposal growing up. We were always CAREFUL not to let giant pieces of food go down the drain. It has only been since I lived in apartments that I have ever even HAD one. I always assumed they were for "incidental" foods going in your drain, like when your hand slips while draining pasta and some of it ends up down the drain. Now, I could be wrong, but I'm almost 100% sure that you are NOT supposed to put LARGE CHUNKS of FOOD in there. It's not a freakin' compost heap! Besides, I know that extra junk in the water supply causes problems at the sewage treatment plant, so if nothing else, I know THEY do not appreciate people shoving half a lemon down there! I took it out quietly and threw it in the trash can. To my knowledge it did not go into the garbage disposal...
But something else DID make a reappearance... old chicken. One night she decided to make chicken soup because I was sick and then my husband began to feel ill too (his cold only lasted about 24hrs, I suffered through at least 3 days). Now, we all went to bed and the next morning, I awoke to find that she never put the chicken or the chicken soup away in the fridge. Her excuse was that it was "too warm to put away." It sat out for at LEAST 3 hours before anyone went to bed, and by morning it was out over 12 hours. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather put warm to hot things away in the fridge and lose money on the power bill than risk food poisoning. She insisted it was ok, and even reheated the soup expecting me to eat it :p (I refused, but my husband ate some). The rest of the chicken I assumed she threw away because I did find a few random bits in the trash can.
That was, until yesterday...
I was going to make curry for dinner and my husband pulled out a tub of frozen chicken that his mom left. When I defrosted it, I found out that it was the same cooked chicken that was left out all night! D: I triple bagged it and tossed it out and thawed some fresh chicken. I hate wasting food, but I did not want to risk getting sick from it. I'm not normally totally paranoid about these things, but it was out for about FIFTEEN HOURS before it was put away.
I hope there are no more surprises.
Now, on to some good non-ranty news. My friend onyx_shinigami got to attend the Distant Worlds concert when it was in Seoul. She was kind enough to send me a link to their site showing that they will be in Atlanta in May :D
I just bought my tickets and will be going with my husband on Friday, May 6th. ^_^
Although the Final Fantasy series no longer impresses me, I do like Nobuo Uematsu. I'm excited ^_^
Other than that, just waiting for the school year to be over... I'm working on a video game lesson, but I don't think the group I have this year will fully appreciate what I know about the subject... particularly because I'm mainly covering the 8-bit NES. I'm focusing on that because: 1) there are a LOT of utilities out there to gather raw data from, 2) how it works and the hardware is well documented, 3) lots of other systems operate under the same basic principles (Sega Master System and Genesis, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance etc.), 4) I can cover Miyamoto and Kondo as artistic references, and 5) I can double check ALL my information with my brother the computer engineer who is currently disassembling SMB 3's code for fun in his spare time ^_^;
All I gotta say is after researching how they make EVERYTHING in 8x8 pixel blocks, I have a new appreciation for how much work they put into those things xx; The little bit of work I have done on it has nearly drove me mad! I hope Miyamoto takes frequent breaks to rock out on his Zora guitar... (ok, that's not a real picture of it, but supposedly he walked into his office one day and Nintendo had custom made him a guitar that looked like that. He is apparently, a very good guitar player).
Anyhow, my efforts and awesome geek powers are probably wasted on this group... Maybe 4th grade will like the lesson more. They are generally more awesome than my 5th graders.
